Q. Did you observe or smell that liquor which came out of the stomach?
A. I could not avoid smelling it.
Q. Had it the same offensive smell?
A. It in general had; one could not expect any smell but partaking of that general putrefaction of the body; but I had a particular taste in my mouth at that time, a kind of biting acrimony upon my tongue. And I have in all the experiments I have made with laurel-water, always had the same taste, from breathing over the water, a biting upon my tongue, and sometimes a bitter taste upon the upper part of the fauces.
Q. Did you impute it to that cause then?
A. No, I imputed it to the volatile salts escaping the body.
Q. Were not the volatile salts likely to occasion that?
A. No. I complained to Mr. Wilmer, "I have a very odd taste in my mouth, my gums bleed."
Q. You attributed it to the volatility of the salts?
A. At that time I could not account for it, but in my experiments afterwards with the laurel-water, the effluvia of it has constantly and uniformly produced the same kind of taste; there is a very volatile oil in it I am confident.
Q. Do not you understand that there cannot be any information at all obtained in consequence of dissecting animals which have been destroyed by laurel-water?
A. I do not think that the operation of these sort of substances upon the inside of the stomach produce any violent appearances of redness, but in most of the animals I have seen there has been small red spots inside, of the size of a shilling perhaps, but the effect in the trials I have made has been a driving the blood from the part of the body where it should be. I believe the effect of the poison is to empty the arteries in general, and push the blood into the veins; that is my opinion at present, so far as I have gone into the matter.
Q. But you was mistaken at first relative to forming an opinion that the death was occasioned by arsenick?
A. Yes.
